# Resolved: The American people should significantly decrease the number of people attending colleges. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653 "2009-10-21T18:55:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/141 "2009-10-30T19:44:56Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > There are many roads to becoming educated and well-informed. Why should we expect someone to know everything at the start of their career? That’s the point. The benefit of college is not to fill someone’s head up with a certain type of information, but to teach someone the process of obtaining the information. That is why the desire of people in the IT industry to have colleges spend all their time teaching stuff that could be used right then is so misplaced. I graduated from college 36 years ago, and practically none of the things I learned in my major field are still relevant. Learning how to learn has been. > [@](#): > > Devote himself to intellectual pursuits in an unstructured environment? There is one big difference - feedback. In college you are forced to have your ideas and writing critically analyzed by someone who knows something. Unless you are so smart and perfect that you get everything right the first time, this isn’t going to happen when you learn by yourself. Some people resist this in college also, but there is a chance. If you doubt me, just consider some of the illogical posts in GD by bozos on all sides of all issues, and think how a good teacher would correct and improve them. In college you are given the time to explore, the time to do research in depth, the time to rewrite. Despite anyone’s best intentions, anyone with a job and a life is not going to have that same level of time. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/142 "2009-10-30T19:46:36Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > You don’t need a degree to be a writer. Perhaps not fiction writing, but my wife is a medical writer and her MS in Biology does get her jobs. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/143 "2009-10-30T20:06:34Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > There is one big difference - feedback. > > =good stuff snipped= > > In college you are given the time to explore, the time to do research in depth, the time to rewrite. Despite anyone’s best intentions, anyone with a job and a life is not going to have that same level of time. I don’t disagree at all and the best companies I have worked for offer continuous opportunities for junior (and senior!) people to develop. I work in an industry where you can’t thrive unless you are continuously learning. Not just industry-specific skills and techniques but presenting, teaching, mentoring, motivational and organizational skills. One of the themes of my posts in this thread is that the current system is self-perpetuating. Where I live, in Silicon Valley, if I meet a smart person I can usually assume that they have a degree or, more likely, a Masters or PhD. When I go back to England, that’s not the case at all. Smart people\* are as likely as not to have skipped college as an unnecessarily luxury. - This is true of my generation. It becomes less true of younger people. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/144 "2009-10-30T23:15:14Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > There are many roads to becoming educated and well-informed. Why should we expect someone to know everything at the start of their career? [/quote] We don’t expect them to know everything. We expect that having a college degree provides an initial basic set of skills that an employer can then shape for their specific role. That’s really the whole point. > [@kevlaw](#): > > Devote himself to intellectual pursuits in an unstructured environment? But do they? And how would I, as an employer know that they had reached any level of competency? > [@kevlaw](#): > > Hence the point of this thread. Employers want smart people. A degree is cheap and easy evidence (from the employers’ point of view) that someone is smart. Employers know that a degree is not “cheap and easy”. My education cost over $200,000 in 2009 dollars and 6 years of my time (undergrad and masters). That is a sizable investment in time and money to pursue an academic goal. And the expectation is that I should be able to perform tasks a lot more challenging than what a retail store manager or administrative assistant. And the fact of the matter is that the burden is on potential employees to demonstrate how smart and talented they are through their accomplishments. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/145 "2009-10-30T23:30:15Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > I work in an industry where you can’t thrive unless you are continuously learning. Not just industry-specific skills and techniques but presenting, teaching, mentoring, motivational and organizational skills. I work in Silicon Valley also. While my company says it supports this learning, in reality it is very hard to get the time to do it - much harder after the bubble. Our internal training organization has shrunk a lot. 10 years ago I brought in a friend who is a professor and the world’s leading expert in an important technology. He spoke at a very reasonable price (cheaper than internal classes) and we had lots of attendees. I tried a few years ago to see if they would have him again, and the internal training organization was not interested. (They had the software to set up classes and for billing, so doing it without them was infeasible.) I also am heavily involved in conferences and workshops, and it is really hard for most people to convince their management to send them to learn. Having a paper accepted works sometimes. I’m not disagreeing with you, but a lot of people thrive in the short term by putting everything into the current project, and then find themselves behind when the next technology rolls around. It is a very tricky balancing act. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/146 "2009-10-31T00:45:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Employers know that a degree is not “cheap and easy”. My education cost over I think you misread **kevlaw**. It’s not the degree itself that’s cheap & easy, it’s the employer’s effort in evaluating candidates that is “cheap & easy.” If I know a person has a medical degree from Harvard and board certified, it’s “cheap & easy” for me to assume that person has some of idea of anatomy and which end of the stethoscope to use. However, the degree itself is “expensive and difficult” for the student to earn. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/147 "2009-10-31T01:54:12Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Or maybe you could share with us how you think someone who devotes himself to intellectul pursuits in a structured environment for four years isn’t more educated and less ignorant than someone who doesn’t? On the one hand I have me. I dropped out of high school in 11th grade. I am constantly reading and learning, and I know many facts about a variety of topics. On the other hand I have the hundreds of people I know who graduated from college (all of my family and friends, to start). Most of them\* do not read and learn now that they are not in college, and most of them know many less facts and have fewer interests than I do. A tiny proportion of them have a career/job that they secured with the help of their specialized degree. More have a career/job that has absolutely nothing to do with their degree. Many don’t have a job that requires any degree at all. I also know plenty of people who did not graduate from college or ever attend. Most of them do not read or learn new things, and most of them know very little about any subject either. Of course I think someone who attends college can achieve an enormously high level of education directly from it, but it’s entirely possible for someone to attain the same degree of knowledge about any or multiple subjects without a classroom. A college degree, or any college attendance at all, has absolutely no correlation with someone’s degree of overall or specialized knowledge. Most people I know who graduated from college are what I would consider dull. If they learned anything there, they forgot it immediately. And BTW, I work full-time and have a life. Conveniently, I have time at work to read books, take notes, and read studies on the internet, as well as post on message boards and read blogs. And ample free time at home (as I don’t have children yet) to pursue my many and varied interests. Side effect: I don’t make much money. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/148 "2009-10-31T01:59:18Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > As a general rule, having an education opens up more doors so that’s why people go to college. As I said, there are studies that show that a college degree is not that great of a financial investment once you take all the costs into account. But I think there are a great deal of intangible benefits to both the individual and society as a whole in having a well educated population. I believe, in essence, you’re saying college teaches people things that high school and/or life ought to (or used to) but doesn’t, yes? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/149 "2009-10-31T02:49:19Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > On the one hand I have me. I dropped out of high school in 11th grade. I am constantly reading and learning, and I know many facts about a variety of topics. There’s significantly more to being educated than knowing facts, and that (IME) is where the self-educated tend not to be as strong as those who have been through some kind of assessment process. Anyway, I recently stumbled across an [article](http://hnn.us/articles/118549.html) that I think is relevant to this thread: > [@](#): > > But for obvious reasons almost no attention has been paid to the appalling decline of literacy among college graduates. In December 2005 the U.S. Department of Education released its second National Assessment of Adult Literacy report. The first survey had been taken in 1992 using a sample that accurately represented the entire adult population age 25 and up. The NAAL grouped respondents into four categories, below basic, basic, intermediate, and proficient according to their reading abilities. These were tested in three categories of literacy labeled prose, document, and quantitative. Prose literacy denotes the ability to search, comprehend, and use information in continuous texts. Document literacy means the ability to do these same things employing noncontinuous texts in various formats. Quantitative literacy involves having the knowledge and skills to work with numbers and figures, a figure that changed very little between 1992 and 2003 when the second assessment was made. > > The other two categories showed a precipitous decline in literacy among college graduates aged 25 and older. In 1992 40 percent of all graduates were found to be proficient in prose and 37 percent demonstrated proficiency in document literacy. In 2003 the percentages were 31 percent and 25 percent respectively. Over a period of eleven years the proficiency of all approximately 37 million college graduates had declined sharply, in prose by nearly a quarter and in document literacy by almost a third. (The performance of high school graduates declined as well, from 5 to 4 percent in prose and 6 to 5 percent in document proficiency.) Apart from the oldest graduates having died the addition of ten, or at most eleven, graduating classes to the pool of college graduates, meant that the members of these classes had to have scored very badly indeed to drag down the averages of the entire population by so much. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/150 "2009-10-31T03:27:00Z")
On the one hand, that is indeed an appalling decline. On the other hand, why the hell weren’t people appalled in 1992 when they found out only 40% of college graduates weren’t proficient readers? ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/151 "2009-10-31T03:34:19Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > There’s significantly more to being educated than knowing facts, and that (IME) is where the self-educated tend not to be as strong as those who have been through some kind of assessment process. But there’s no way to measure any of this, so I think it’s a mistake to make sweeping assessments of the formally educated, the self-educated, and differences between them. It is true that more people end up in college who are motivated to excel academically and have higher intelligence. But these things were usually true about them in grade school as well. I have 1 former and 3 current college professors in my family (as well as 3 college administrators). According to them at least, college is making very few more capable. 😉 In fact they are at their wits end with the poor quality of their student’s work which they see as getting worse as years go by, and often frustrated by their lack of meaningful impact on the majority. However they rarely fail students who do their work. Of course those few exceptional students make it a rewarding job for them. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/152 "2009-10-31T03:35:53Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I also am heavily involved in conferences and workshops, and it is really hard for most people to convince their management to send them to learn. Having a paper accepted works sometimes. > I’m not disagreeing with you, but a lot of people thrive in the short term by putting everything into the current project, and then find themselves behind when the next technology rolls around. It is a very tricky balancing act. Absolutely. It’s tricky. But smart, motivated people find a way to continue to learn - whether or not they have a degree. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/153 "2009-10-31T05:46:50Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > I think you misread **kevlaw**. It’s not the degree itself that’s cheap & easy, it’s the employer’s effort in evaluating candidates that is “cheap & easy.” > > If I know a person has a medical degree from Harvard and board certified, it’s “cheap & easy” for me to assume that person has some of idea of anatomy and which end of the stethoscope to use. However, the degree itself is “expensive and difficult” for the student to earn. I understand what he means. It’s cheaper and easier than taking each candidate one by one and subjecting them to a battery of tests to determine their actual knowledge on a subject. > [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > I believe, in essence, you’re saying college teaches people things that high school and/or life ought to (or used to) but doesn’t, yes? I would say no. High school is very much a “one size fits most” program. College allows you more flexibility in finding a program suitable to your interests and abilities. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/154 "2009-10-31T08:10:41Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > Yes. It’s hard to imagine that someone who could finish high school not knowing about the founding fathers, the constitution, the electoral college, the relationship between the states and the federal government and how elections work would know much more after another four years of college. Actually, those students probably will know more about these things after 4 years in college. After 4 years in college many (but not all) of them will have come pretty close to learning what they should have learned in high school. That is a big part of the problem–the horible academic standards of many American high schools. If we could somehow massively raise the standards for achieving a high school degree THEN it could be argued that there should be more, not less students attending college. The OP is correct. There are far too many people in American colleges that have no business being there. University is not a trade school. University is not for remedial courses to make up for abysmal high school educations. University is for giving qualified students a well-rounded education to prepare them for specific, intellectually-intensive pursuits. If your high school can’t give you the proper basic education that it should and graduates you anyway when you clearly don’t have what it takes for University then you shouldn’t be accepted to a University–you simply don’t make the grade. Of course there needs to be quality vocational training options available for the vast amount of students who currently don’t have what it SHOULD take to be accepted to University. I don’t think that there are, and that is a problem. But that problem shouldn’t be “solved” by turning universities into glorified vocational schools. American universities should be raising their standards, not lowering them. Improving high school education is even more important. But as things stand now, there should be less people attending University–and consequently less universities–because there just aren’t that many high school graduates who are truly qualified to attend University. Improve American high school education about 500% and then we can revisit whether there are too few or too many students admitted to universities. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/155 "2009-10-31T15:02:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I understand what he means. It’s cheaper and easier than taking each candidate one by one and subjecting them to a battery of tests to determine their actual knowledge on a subject. That’s not at all what I mean. > [@msmith537](#): > > I would say no. High school is very much a “one size fits most” program. College allows you more flexibility in finding a program suitable to your interests and abilities. Again, I believe you are confusing _what is_ with _what should be_. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/156 "2009-10-31T15:09:37Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > But there’s no way to measure any of this Except by grades in a college or university course. I’m not going to claim that that’s a universally reliable measure, but yes, we can differentiate between people who just know facts and people who can analyze, synthesize and all that good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/157 "2009-10-31T15:23:16Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > If we could somehow massively raise the standards for achieving a high school degree THEN it could be argued that there should be more, not less students attending college. If the goal of high school is to send people to college, it is failing in its task. One solution is to do a better job at preparing people for college but I’d rather high school have a different goal. > [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > University is for giving qualified students a well-rounded education to prepare them for specific, intellectually-intensive pursuits. If your high school can’t give you the proper basic education that it should and graduates you anyway when you clearly don’t have what it takes for University then you shouldn’t be accepted to a University–you simply don’t make the grade. Of course there needs to be quality vocational training options available for the vast amount of students who currently don’t have what it SHOULD take to be accepted to University. I don’t think that there are, and that is a problem. > > But that problem shouldn’t be “solved” by turning universities into glorified vocational schools. American universities should be raising their standards, not lowering them. Improving high school education is even more important. I absolutely agree that universities should not be turned into vocational schools and that there needs to be quality vocational alternatives for those who prefer that route (and can we please stop using plumbers as the example? There should be vocational alternatives for engineers, accountants, nurses too). But I disagree that a university education should necessarily be well-rounded. Balanced degrees should be available too but, if high schools were doing their job properly, college entrants would be ready to specialize much more than they do now. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/158 "2009-10-31T18:58:55Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > Again, I believe you are confusing _what is_ with _what should be_. Well…what YOU think should be. > [@I Love Me](#): > > If we could somehow massively raise the standards for achieving a high school degree THEN it could be argued that there should be more, not less students attending college. The OP is correct. There are far too many people in American colleges that have no business being there. University is not a trade school. University is not for remedial courses to make up for abysmal high school educations. > > But that problem shouldn’t be “solved” by turning universities into glorified vocational schools. American universities should be raising their standards, not lowering them. Improving high school education is even more important. But not all colleges are the same. Ivy League and other top universities DO have high standards for acceptance and graduation. Then again, a significant number of those students come from private schools. Maybe there should be fewer schools if the prevailing attitude is all that matters is getting a degree. Because according to to all evidence I’ve seen, all degrees are not equal. It is disingenuous to try to convince people that their “jsut a degree” from Anyschool State and hard work will open up the same doors as a degree from Harvard. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/159 "2009-10-31T19:24:40Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > But not all colleges are the same. Ivy League and other top universities DO have high standards for acceptance and graduation. You’re straying from the original spirit of the OP’s message. Clearly, **Enderw24** was not talking about Stanford, Harvard, Yale that can pick the cream of the crop students with 1400+ SAT scores. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/160 "2009-11-02T19:52:35Z")
Today’s post from RYS fits into this thread: [http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2009/11/dick-from-doylestown-on-what-has.html](http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2009/11/dick-from-doylestown-on-what-has.html) Having taught for enough years to witness much of what he writes about, I have to agree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653.md?page=9)